


all I'm asking is to be alive

by bookhobbit



Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Snippets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-14
Updated: 2016-08-14
Packaged: 2018-08-08 17:47:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7767304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookhobbit/pseuds/bookhobbit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's always the quiet moments that leave Emma breathless.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all I'm asking is to be alive

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! I haven't written anything in ages! I actually have something quite a bit longer coming up but it's in beta-ing and I wrote this yesterday after I finished it and it didn't need a beta bc it's short, so...here? It's a bit of a rough sketch more than anything really finished but i quite like it as one so.

How Childermass gets the idea that interfering is any of his business Emma doesn't know, but she knows this: that it doesn't turn out the way he planned.

This is evident from the way he says, "What?" when she and Segundus look at each other and pull him in towards them.

"Kissing," says Emma helpfully.

"I gathered that," says Childermass. "I just thought - "

"Oh, we like each other."

"Oh!" says Segundus, as if he hadn't quite realized she felt the same way he did. She looks at him fondly, if with exasperation.

"Of course I do," she says. "How could I not? Look at you."

Segundus begins to turn red. He does this often, which Emma finds strangely endearing.

"I agree," says Childermass. "I, however - "

"Are a challenge," says Emma.

"Are also beautiful," says Segundus at the same time.

She looks at the two of them, and they stare back at her.

"Well," she says, "Come on, then."

-

Segundus's hair is mussed, his lips kiss-stained, his cheeks red. His dark eyes are bright, bright, as bright as Emma's ever seen them.

"Isn't he pretty?" she asks Childermass.

"He is," says Childermass softly.

Segundus takes both their hands, and pulls them down to him.

-

"I'm not marrying you," says Emma, the first time they are in bed together. "Either of you."

Childermass raises an eyebrow. Segundus, predictably, blushes, which tells Emma that he might have been intending to propose. To help her regain her respectability, probably.

"It's not that I don't like you," she says, "But I've had quite enough of married life. Besides, it would ruin your reputations."

Childermass laughs aloud. "Well," he says, "We can't have that, can we?"

"Hmm. Have you considered how awkward it is, both of you being named John?" says Emma seriously, propping herself up on her arms and staring at them.

"Yes," says Segundus. "Good God, have I."

"Nothing wrong with John," says Childermass. "Good English name, John."

"I suppose you're named after the Raven King," says Emma.

"Not me. After my mam."

Emma raises her eyebrows. "Her name was John?"

"Joan." He shrugs. "She always said I was her child and hers alone and that all I'd ever got from my dad was my nose. So I was to be named after her."

Segundus reaches out and traces the bridge of Childermass's nose. "I, personally, am grateful to him," he says softly.

"It could have been worse," Emma agrees.

"I was named after my grandfather," says Segundus. "I don't think my parents cared very much about the Raven King."

"And you a Sheffield man," says Childermass.

"Only by birth," says Segundus apologetically, "Not by education."

"By adoption, now," says Childermass. "I'm christening you. A Sheffield man, born and bred."

Segundus laughs softly and presses a kiss to Childermass's neck. "And you?" he asks Emma.

"I'm content to be from Northamptonshire," she says, "But I will join you in the denunciation of London, if you wish."

"At least that's something we can agree on," says Childermass.

-

She's never actually apologised for shooting Childermass. In fact, she's not entirely sure she feels there's anything to apologise for. "I didn't ask you to jump in front of the gun," she tells him once.

Childermass shrugs, as he always does. "And I never asked you to apologise."

Which is a point. He doesn't seem to expect it of her; he never even says anything about the way she covers the scar with her hand sometimes when they kiss. She's not quite reconciled it yet, that she's kissing a man who was willing to die to protect Norrell.

"He was awful," she says. "Is, probably. I can't imagine he's any better now."

"He was to you, and I'm not excusing that," says Childermass with a puff of his pipe. "But I owed him. No - not that way. If I didn't think it was worth it, though, if I didn't think there was something worth saving, then I wouldn't have tried."

Emma still doesn't exactly understand that. It makes her angry, sometimes - she could have been free earlier if Childermass had only hadn't insisted on getting in the way - but sometimes she looks at the scar on his shoulder and thinks about what would have happened if her aim had been a little better.

She kisses the scar itself sometimes now. It started when he was asleep but sometimes now when they're kissing - only ever when they're alone - she presses her lips to it, carefully, delicately.

"You don't have to be so gentle," he tells her once, voice rough.

"I know firsthand how fragile you are," she tells him, but she bites down on his shoulder and he hisses in his breath sharply and that's the end of that discussion.

But she knows he feels her fierce gladness that he is alive.

-

Sometimes Segundus kisses her hands, one finger at a time and then the palms, working up to the wrists and stopping there; he does it slowly, reverently, like he can't quite believe she's safe now. The finger that's been reattached isn't even numb now, and she marvels over it every time he kisses it. How lucky she is - or, no, not lucky. She was brave and so was Stephen and they survived, and now here she is.

With Segundus.

"I'm afraid it was very unprofessional of me," he says. "Conceiving of an interest in one of my patients. My only patient, I suppose."

She smiles and puts a hand under his chin. He is knelt before her, staring up, one of her hands in both of his, and as she tilts his face upward his eyes go wide and liquid and gentle.

"You were never much of a madhouse-keeper," she says. "But I have never liked the species. Be glad of your failings. I much prefer you as a friend."

Segundus stays kneeling, right where she left him. She knows that he won't move until she makes some indication of where she'd like him, and there is such power and such softness in that knowledge. She feels full of sunlight.

She takes both his hands and pulls him to his feet, and wraps her arms around him just to felt the solid warmth of him there. He's shorter, just by a few inches, and it makes her feel strong to hold him.

He breathes in and out and strokes her hair, so gently, and she takes his face in his hands and kisses him.

He would die before he hurt her, and she would kill to see him safe.

-

Emma sleeps on the outermost side of the bed, with her arm slung over Childermass in the middle and Segundus always pressed up to his chest. It's more convenient because, two years after her captivity has ended, she has still not ceased to be gripped with the urge to dance.

Sometimes, when she wakes and slips out of bed to walk, Childermass whispers "Emma," and it makes her feel like she has something to come back to.

(Segundus rarely wakes up for just one of them getting out of bed. He's a much deeper sleeper than she expected and is, furthermore, not particularly fond of mornings. He drags himself out of bed with his hair a mess and she and Childermass grin at each other as he blinks sleepily and crossly out at the world until tea restores him to his natural state of gentle humour.)

One time they walk with her, both of them - she gets up shaking, the urge on her so strongly that she can barely walk, and Childermass must have felt something. He rolls over and looks at her.

"Emma," he says, as he always does, his voice thick with sleep and full of quiet promise.

"I can't - I can't - " she says. "I can't, it's too much - "

He sits up and casts about for his breeches. Shoves them on over his nightshirt when he finds them, and pulls stockings up his calves, badly, so that they're half-fallen down. By this time Segundus has woken, deprived of Childermass to lay on, and is squinting at them.

"I'll come," he says, with what Emma considers an impressive grasp of the situation at three in the morning.

"You don't have to," says Childermass. "No use all of us losing our sleep."

"I'll come," he says firmly, and dresses with somewhat more neatness than Childermass had managed.

They walk empty country lanes in the dark, Segundus's high thin voice telling them tales of the Raven King to pass the time, and she gets absorbed enough in them that she starts to feel herself relax. Childermass takes over, after Segundus runs out, carefully avoiding the ones that heavily feature fairies. Then, to Emma's amusement, he starts singing sea shanties. Segundus hums along as best he can, and joins in with the occasional folk song or two. They're so unlike what she would have danced to at Lost-hope that her legs finally stop itching.

"Let's go back," she says. "We might be able to sleep for an hour or two more yet."

With one of her hands in each of theirs, they go home.


End file.
